Increasing difficulty when using characters from Dragon's Demand in Curse of the Crimson Throne


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


It says to use one wildcard for every every adventure you've completed in Dragon's Demand and increase the # by the last scenario you completed. How long does that last?

So, say you've completed all three adventures in DD, you would add three wildcards and increase # by 3. But does that continue into adventure 2 and 3 and then into the rest of CotCT? Or do you maybe only add two wildcards in adventure 2 and one in adventure 3 since the banes are getting harder and you're not as powerful? Does the # stay 3 until adventure 4?

Any clarification would be appreciated.


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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'd suggest using the Adventure Path Reward rule from the Dragon's Demand storybook if the rule in the Curse storybook seems too challenging.

Quote:
You may play your character in another Adventure Path starting with adventure 1. Build the vault with all of its level 0, 1, 2, and 3 cards, and treat # as 3 during adventures 1, 2, and 3.

Note: unlike the Curse rule, the above only applies if you earned the AP reward for Dragon's Demand--that is, you had a character that has earned every scenario reward for every scenario in Dragon's Demand.

If you want to go with the Curse version of the rule, then it indeed applies throughout the entire AP. You would be rocking 3 wildcards, increasing # by 3, and treating the level of monsters as 3 higher throughout the entirety of Curse.

However, the "you're not as powerful" bit really doesn't apply. You'll still be earning hero points for each Curse scenario you complete, and you can spend those hero points on more feats. When using the Curse rules with someone who has completed DD, Curse adventure 1 is treated as a level 4 adventure (so you can have up to 4 feats of each type). Curse adventure 2 is a level 5 adventure, and so on.

If you use the DD AP reward, however, Curse adventures 1-3 are all level 3 so you wouldn't be able to earn additional feats until you start Curse adventure 4. You'll still earn the hero points, but they'll only be useful for rerolls and to resurrect you.

Pick the one that suits you best.


Here's more detail about the two options, if it helps:

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42klg?Dragons-Demand-Curse-of-the-Crimson-Thro ne#4


skizzerz wrote:
However, the "you're not as powerful" bit really doesn't apply.

Well, that really depends on what OP means by "you're not as powerful". If you take it to mean "objectively" more powerful, as in - hero continues to earn feats- yes, that's untrue.

However, if you take it to mean "capability to deal with specific banes" which ARE "getting more powerful" - that's another picture entirely.

If you're playing post-DD heroes with Curse rules - by Curse AD3 you'll be dealing with flat +6 non-combat and flat +12 combat increase on banes. By AD6 these would be *flat* +9 and a whopping +18 Combat on every. single. veteran. card! For reference, character skill increase is capped at +4 *at most* - so while you may have 9 skill feats instead of 6 - only 4 of them would only ever be of use to you against that +18 combat (for most characters). Due to the new Sharks policy that even helpful powers don't add static bonuses but rather only increase the size of the die you - you don't get much help from those either.

Sure, you could get a bit of a flat bonus from your boons - that would max at around +3 for weapons at around AD5- but even there you're out of luck due to the specific nature of DD - it has a negligible amount of L2 and L3 boons, so when you start Curse AD1 (effective level 4) - you're more than likely to start under-geared. So, while some would find that kind of "hope for higher dice rolls" "challenge" enticing, I can definitely see why there're people that view the banes as getting stronger than the characters.

Taking a post-DD party into Curse (with either method) is just not worth the hassle for my money, but I would be genuinely interested in anyone reporting their experience of doing it with the Curse method - it sounds like a blood march slog to me, but I'd be happy to stand corrected.


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Just a few weeks ago, I actually finished a party going through the Dragon's Demand into Curse using the Curse method of adding 3 to #, adding 3 wildcards, etc.

It was definitely tough for our party, since we had Valeros, Fumbus, and Harsk, so checks like Knowledge or Divine were nigh-impossible when # was getting an extra +3 or +6.

For ease of setup and bookkeeping, we tended to use the 6-monster and 6-barrier wildcards, and then the appropriate Harrow wildcard.

There were a few times in the late-game we just got walled by either the Harrow wildcard (Stars, where you recharge a card after your non-blessed check) or a scenario effect (specifically just the late-game one where you had to essentially close the location twice because it had an Evidence in it). In each case, we played it 2-3 times as it was, and if we still got walled, we adjusted something.

When it was the harrow wildcard stopping us, we changed it out for some other wildcard.

In the late-game scenario with the Evidence keeping a location open the first time it was going to close, we ended up just skipping that effect and closing the location anyway after our third time losing by running out of blessings in the hourglass. We still just barely managed to scrape through the scenario after that, because dice would just roll low numbers seemingly fairly often.

The Valeros build went the shield route, and had a pile of shields, with just a single sword in the deck, to ensure it was always available. Wyrmsmite's damage reduction got plenty of use before Serithtial came along. The other weapons were usually just recharged for local combat checks, unless it was Quarterstaff of Vaulting. Being able to reveal shields for powers was pretty useful for the "Klar" shields for Melee combats, Tower Shield to reroll a die on any local combat check, and the Brute Force Shield to deal with Disable checks.

The Fumbus deck went for "big boom" items, and Harsk went down the route to carry a few divine spells, specifically the Cure-types. Each deck generally kept itself able to recharge at least one used card every turn, so we didn't ever die.

Treating # as 3 higher was really useful starting in the mid-game, when some bigger alchemical items were added to the vault, like Bottled Lightning, because when you pull from the vault to rebuild, you can grab whatever you want to fill the last slots in a deck. For example, completing an adventure with a printed # of 4, plus 3 for having completed DD, minus 2 per the rebuilding rules gets a result of "level 5 or less".

With a more balanced party, it might have been easier where we struggled, but it was fun getting to fill out nearly every feat on the characters.


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WoodManZX wrote:
Just a few weeks ago, I actually finished a party going through the Dragon's Demand into Curse using the Curse method

Thanks for this write-up, really appreciated! I don't see our group ever attempting this (and there's plenty of other PACG product to keep us busy anyway), but there were a few players wondering what such a "hardcore" experience would be like (though, with the time pressure of 6-player party, I'd assume it'd be even worse for us).

It seems it truly was...*puts on sunglasses*... a harrowing experience..

WoodManZX wrote:
Treating # as 3 higher was really useful starting in the mid-game, ... For example, completing an adventure with a printed # of 4, plus 3 for having completed DD, minus 2 per the rebuilding rules gets a result of "level 5 or less".

That's awfully cheeky of you, though, unfortunately, illegal per current RAW. While treating your printed #4 as #7 would allow you to keep any theoretical L5 boons you come across - the rebuilding rules instruct you to get cards from the *Vault* - but regardless of printed or effective #, neither DD nor Curse method allows you to add any cards to the Vault higher than the *printed* #. Still, having fun is what matters the most and your feat is not diminished by fudging the rules a bit :D


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Our group is a little behind WoodManZX's, we're currently at 6B (which we've failed once) with Valeros the Drunk*, Kyra and Harsk. It's been challenging but not too overwhelming.

First, our little tweak (more to simplify the randomness): Instead of "3 wildcards" we use the current Adventure's Harrow WC (like above), plus one random WC from the other 12, plus Large location decks. None of us particularly like/enjoy wildcards, though reprinting the cards on larger (4"x6") stock with coins to mark the active ones means we're a little less likely to say "Oh, we forgot the wildcard was in effect."

Overall, although the game balance is not as tight as the base game, it's still playable. We do enjoy having all of the extra feats (plus the bonus feat reward from our first CoCT playthough). In DD and vanilla CoCT, the number of feats often felt stingy. In Wrath there were tons of "extra" feats, and even the other 3 boxes threw in a few extra here and there. That said, there is definitely a feeling that the difficulty is ramping up faster than our "power" level. You really start feeling it around deck 4 or 5, and by deck 6 it's pretty stiff. The +# Veteran checks are no joke, and we cringe at those +## double-veterans (and the occasional +###) -- regularly seeing difficulties in the 30s on trash side-encounters. Every now and then it does work in our favor, holding on to otherwise underwelming low-level Veteran boons that suddenly add +9 or more to a static (or even veteran) check.

So while there are certainly more hilariously out-of-depth moments (let's see, I have 1d4 needing to roll a 23 -- oh, wait, I get +1d4 for the Harrow suit! Anyone want to help?), we're still having fun. The last few scenarios are going to be a bit of a struggle, but we'll get there.

* -- While Drunken Master Valeros is a lot of fun to play ("Why won't you stay there and guard that location?!?"), I am amused that many of the "liquids" in his deck are things Valeros probably shouldn't be drinking, mostly paints and poisons with the occasional bomb.

Lone Shark Games

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Sathar wrote:
* -- While Drunken Master Valeros is a lot of fun to play ("Why won't you stay there and guard that location?!?"), I am amused that many of the "liquids" in his deck are things Valeros probably shouldn't be drinking, mostly paints and poisons with the occasional bomb.

Drunken Avenger is a lot more reasonable of a name than Paint-Huffing Toad-Licking Valeros, and in no way would I encourage that behavior, but hypothetically the mechanics are functionally the same...


Keith Richmond wrote:
Drunken Avenger is a lot more reasonable of a name than Paint-Huffing Toad-Licking Valeros, and in no way would I encourage that behavior, but hypothetically the mechanics are functionally the same...

On behalf of all goblins out there, Toad-Licking should definitively be forbbiden to Longshanks.


Frencois wrote:
On behalf of all goblins out there, Toad-Licking should definitively be forbbiden to Longshanks.

Eh, problem tends to sort itself out. "Natural selection", I suppose you could call it.

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